Posted by From Kola Ologbondiyan in Abuja on
Senate would this morning open debate on the United States National Intelligence Council document entitled: 'Mapping Sub-Saharan Africa's Future," which predicted the 'outright collapse of Nigeria" as a nation-state within the next 15 years.
Senate would this morning open debate on the United States National Intelligence Council document entitled: 'Mapping Sub-Saharan Africa's Future," which predicted the 'outright collapse of Nigeria" as a nation-state within the next 15 years.
President Olusegun Obasanjo had in the response to the report, which he addressed to the Senate President Ken Nnamani, said he would appreciate the Senate's 'reactions, perspectives and suggestions" on the report."
The page 17 of the report under the heading 'Downside Risks" has warned that 'while currently Nigeria's leaders are locked in a bad marriage that all dislike but dare not leave, there are possibilities that could disrupt the precarious equilibrium in Abuja.
'The most important would be a junior officer coup that could destabilise the country to the extent that open warfare breaks out in many places in a sustained manner. If Nigeria were to become a failed state, it could drag down a large part of the West Africa region.
'Even state failure in small countries such as Liberia has the effect of destabilising entire neighbourhoods. If millions were to flee a collapsed Nigeria, the surrounding countries, up to and including Ghana, would be destabilised. Further, a failed Nigeria probably could not be reconstituted for many years - if ever - and not without massive international assistance," the report said.
The Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions vice chairman, Senator Farouk Bunza Bello, in moving the motion for the debate on the report cited Order 42 and urged his colleagues to take the report today.
When Nnamani called the question, it was unanimously carried that the debate on the report be taken today.